Official: Russia Will Finish Reactor

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, February 13, 2002

A top Russian official said Thursday that Russia intends to fulfill its contract to help build a nuclear reactor in Iran, despite U.S. calls for Moscow to break the deal.

Deputy Nuclear Energy Minister Valery Lebedev said Russia plans to complete construction of the nuclear plant at Bushehr in late 2004 or early 2005, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The United States has long urged Russia to terminate the 1995 contract for the Bushehr nuclear reactor, worth about $800 million, saying it could advance Iran's efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Moscow has dismissed the U.S. warnings, saying that the Iranian reactor can be used only for civilian purposes and will be under international control.

Russia's nuclear ties with Iran have been a strain on Moscow's relationship with Washington, which have been dramatically bolstered by Russian President Vladimir Putin's support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

President Bush recently referred to Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil" _ an embarrassment to Russia, which has close ties with all three.

Lebedev said Thursday that Russia would take back all the spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr reactor for reprocessing in compliance with the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. The same practice will be applied to nuclear power plants Russia has agreed to build in China and India, he said.